SOUNDS!(Review)

Compact disc, 1999, Aanen Lumo Charm of Sound CSR-0199; available from Charm of Sound, P.O. Box 353, Fin-00131 Helsinki, Finland; telephone (+358) 9-754-5407; electronic mail charm_of_sound@yahoo.com; World Wide Web sound.xs2.net

Compilations of a genre of music provide listeners with a cross-section of a musical community, a means of entry into a particular artistic domain populated with diverse individuals and approaches connected by aesthetic or social context. The electroacoustic community has been fortunate in the past decade to have had many such "keys" to the activities of those involved in electroacoustic music-making made readily available. One can cite as examples compilations from the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC), Society for Electro-Acoustic Music of the United States (SEAMUS), Consortium for the Distribution of Computer Music (CDCM), and empreintes DIGITALes, among others. SOUNDS! gives us yet another opportunity to sample the explorations of a group of engaged and dedicated practitioners of sonic art.

This compilation, conceived, produced, and curated by Finnish composer Petri Kuljuntausta, offers the listener 20 3-minute electroacoustic works in as many different styles employing contemporary digital instrumentation. Electronic ambient soundscapes are represented by Jukka Ruohomaki's Jockey Seq; noise collage in Hermosolu by Vesa Lahti and in Kidstone ...